Page 198 of Evermore

On stage, Ezra stood with a triumphant smile, as if he’d been expecting this all along. Paesha at his side, her face a mask of defiance despite the blade at her throat. Elowen and Thea knelt at the edge of the stage, hands bound behind their backs.

“Brother!” Ezra’s voice carried easily through the cavernous space. “You’re just in time for the finale.”

My gaze locked with Paesha’s. In that split-second, I saw everything—fury, relief, determination, and beneath it all, a question.What are you doing?

No time to explain. I strode forward, power surging as I moved. The mortals shrank back, pressing themselves into their seats to avoid touching me. Smart. What I was about to do would change everything.

“Release them,” I commanded.

Ezra’s smile widened. “Now why would I do that when we’re just getting to the good part?”

My gaze flicked to Elowen and Thea. Both women knelt with straight backs and lifted chins—defiant to the end.

“I’m not here to negotiate.”

Ezra’s laughter echoed through the theater. “No? Then what exactly are you here for, brother? Perhaps to offer yourself in her place?” His smile turned cruel. “I’ll spare you the decision. You can watch, but there’s not a thing you can do to stop me.”

I came to a halt at the edge of the stage, power swirling visibly around me. “You’re wrong.”

Something in my tone made Ezra pause, the slightest flicker of uncertainty crossing his face. I turned to Vesalia, who stood behind me, her timeless beauty unmarred by the tension of the moment. She held her hand out expectantly. When I shot her a look, she whispered. “It must be given freely. Otherwise I’d have already taken it from your Ever and before that, the dead prince.” She wiggled her fingers and glanced back to Ezra, who was storming toward us.

“Take it. All but what we agreed upon,” I said, sliding my hand into hers.

Understanding dawned in Ezra’s eyes, followed swiftly by horror. He lurched forward, but it was already too late. The connection formed instantly, a bridge between our power. Golden light began to flow from me into her, not a trickle, but a torrent. My power, the point of my existence pouring out of me in waves.

Ezra staggered, dropping to his knees with a strangled cry. The weapon he’d held clattered to the stage. “What have you done?”

“There is balance in power, right brother?” I remained standing despite the agony of being hollowed out from within. “What I give, you also lose.”

The transfer continued. My vision began to blur at the edges, reality growing hazy as I was reduced to a mere fraction of what I had been. But still I remained on my feet, my gaze locked with my brother’s. I could hear Paesha screaming at me to stop. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t condemn us to a life of wondering when and if he would come again. This ended today. She’d stood against her adversaries, and I would stand against mine.

“You—” Ezra’s voice emerged as a broken rasp. “You can’t—” He scrambled, reaching for his blade.

“I can. I have.”

Paesha’s Remnants exploded outward, darkness flooding the theater as she seized control. Like living shadows, they wrapped around Ezra, binding him in coils of pure night. They raced through the theater, ensnaring every Unmade Guardian, rendering them harmless in an instant.

Then her gaze found mine. She knew what I had done. Vesalia finally released my hand, stepping back with power radiating from her like heat from a sun. She had become something new, something greater—perhaps the most powerful god in existence, though Paesha was likely still a close second.

“A deal is a deal.” She approached my brother, watching how he struggled against Paesha’s shadows, his face twisted with fury and desperation. “Supreme Sovereign, God of Unmaking, your Fate is sealed.”

With a gesture so elegant it was almost casual, Vesalia froze Ezra in time. Not dead, not destroyed, something far worse. Locked in a single moment, unable to move forward or back, to act or think or be.

“It’s done,” she declared, her eyes meeting mine one final time. “You have what we agreed upon. A drop. Enough tosurvive, but never enough to challenge me.” Without another word, without a backward glance, she turned and walked out of the theater, taking with her the power that had defined me since the beginning of everything.

Ezra vanished.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Paesha rushed to Elowen and Thea, cutting their bonds. I tried to step forward, but my legs buckled. I caught myself on the edge of the stage, my vision swimming because everything felt wrong, muted, distant, hollow. I had existed as a god for so long, I wasn’t expecting what it meant to be anything less. Now I was… what? Not mortal, not quite. But no longer what I had been.

Paesha came to me next, her hands gripping my shoulders. “What did you do? Thorne, what did you do?”

I managed a smile, though it felt fragile on my face. “What was necessary.”

“You gave her your power.”

“Almost all.”